190 #22. Well, this is merely the beginning (5) >

I climbed down the temple’s entrance in airy steps and walked on the road. Soldiers tried to accompany me as my escort, but I used a light little wave of my hand to stop them, only permitting two priests to come with me.

“It is my honour to serve you, sire.”

“Where would you like to go, sire?”

I pointed at Ria while replying to the priests. “My disciple knows the way. Let us simply follow her guidance.”

Ria also left the temple to show me the way.

The two priests nodded and silently stepped back, then began following me.

“Kuwaaaaahk!”

A familiar scream could be heard. It seemed that we had already reached our destination.

“D-Don’t kill me..”

And soon, we were treated to the sight of the hero crawling on the ground.

“Aaaaahng? You know me so well, yet you still dare say that! This big sister never killed anyone, I’ll have you know!”

Next up, we saw the entrance of the metal bat snickering away right behind him.

“No, I.. Just.. kill me... Kkuwaaaahk!”

My entourage and I watched the hero crawl around and cry out in despair. A little while later, Belegrea silently spectating the carnage from some distance away walked up to me.

“Is this to your satisfaction, sire?”

After I became the demon king, Belegrea’s attitude underwent a complete transformation. Wanting to test her loyalty, I assigned her the role of monitoring the hero and Ria. And what do you know, she successfully handled the task.

“Yes. Well done. I shall also rely on your help in the future.”

Belegrea wordlessly bowed slightly at my reply and went back.

Since I also had nothing to say to her, I shifted my attention to the metal bat currently mounting the downed hero for a good ol’ ground-and-pound.

“C-can I go now, too?”

“Yes, you may go. Good work. Our itinerary for today is complete, anyway. You should try to get some rest.”

“Y-yes..”

Ria, who could legitimately be viewed as the MVP in apprehending the hero alive, sneakily slunk away from here, too. It seemed that her mental trauma was reactivated after witnessing the metal bat beating up the hero while making the familiar ‘toushi, toushi’ noises.

“Oh, and don’t try to escape, Ria.”

“O-of course..!”

Ria’s complexion paled in an instant as she quickly fled from the scene. She was acting like someone was chasing her down. Of course, she was still one of my disciples. That’s why I didn’t forget to signal Belegrea to silently monitor that girl.

Belegrea managed to stop the hero, so it should be a cinch for her to stop Ria.

“Still, that was too close for comfort, wasn’t it?”

Since the image of the hero wielding his sword was so strong in my head, I ended up unconsciously forgetting that I did teach him how to cast magic.

Honestly, if it hadn’t been for Ria, this situation might have turned into a very dicey one for us.

“I dunno who raised her, but she sure has been raised well. She’s quite commendable, indeed!”

Ria managed to detect the flow of the hero’s magic energy even from so far away, then quickly analysed the nature of the magic spell and determined that he was trying to use short-distance Warp.

#5 Their circumstance: A certain Aggreahrt’s circumstance

Griiiit..

My teeth began grinding all by themselves.

My hand holding the letter was trembling almost out of control, too.

I seriously considered ripping up this damn letter into pieces and killing the priest that delivered it to me, but..!

“Is this really the will of the demon king after he received the Demon God’s oracle?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

I glared murderously at the demon priest standing haughtily in front of me, but the bastard didn’t even flinch once.

We act only for the sake of the Demon God, so they say. The group of individuals willing to sacrifice themselves for that purpose was the priests serving in the Demon God’s temple.

Even if this priest was about to die, he’d smile and welcome his death while saying that he was finally on his way to the Demon God’s embrace. Meanwhile, his death would result in the fury of not just the Demon God’s temple, but all the other temples in the demon continent.

Attacking Belegrea first resulted in many among my fellow demons viewing me as their enemy. And my subordinates that believe in my cause and follow my will would swiftly turn their backs on me if I laid my hands on this damn priest.

<Oh, dear Aggreahrt! The one who defies the will of the Demon God!

You believe you’re following the Demon God’s will, but how can a mere demon fully comprehend the true intentions of our great and noble deity!

You’re merely deceiving yourself.

You simply decided to trade the name of the great and noble Demon God to create a suitable pretext for yourself. To satisfy your desire to become the next demon king!

Ah, aaaah..! Oh, you foolish one!

Your foolish ways even managed to anger our benevolent Demon God!

Our great and noble Demon God has thus sent me to stop your ambition. And to answer her commandment, I must kill you.

However, our Demon God is magnanimous.

So magnanimous that she still loves you, even after you dared to besmirch her name for the sake of your ambition! So much so that she’s willing to grant an opportunity to a sinner such as yourself!

Our great and noble Demon God has spoken thus: if you willingly take your own life, she shall pardon all your sins.

Oh, Aggreahrt, you foolish one!

You now have two choices. One, follow the great and noble Demon God’s command and willingly take your life while shedding the tears of repentance. Alternatively, you can choose to reject and deny me for the sake of fulfilling your ambition.

And that is for you to label me a false demon king, a conman merely using the name of our great and noble Demon God.

Now, choose.

Will you believe in our Demon God and follow her command? Or will you start a new civil war among the demon race just to satisfy your ambition?

Whichever you choose to do, I swear in the name of our Demon God that I shall calmly accept your choice. That is the will of our great and noble Demon God, after all. This is also my duty as the servant of the Demon God’s will.

But the moment you suspect the sincerity of my declaration, I swear to attack you without mercy.

From the servant of our Demon God, Marcus.>

Death.

This.. was supposed to be the will of the new demon king who received the Demon God’s oracle.

“Is this demon really.. Is he really the new demon king who received the Demon God’s trust?”

“The servant of our great and noble Demo God, the new demon king Marcus went through the Demon God’s Blessing ceremony and emerged unscathed. And he even personally showed us the Demon God’s grace and mercy. He let us experience this otherworldly pain to wake us from our foolish ways, yet our bodies were left with not a single scar or an injury!”

The priest explained passionately as spittle flew out of his mouth. I could only groan under my breath while listening to this nonsense.

This was the absolute worst.

It didn’t matter at this point whether that new demon king was really chosen by the Demon God or not. I had no doubt in my mind that these priests would do exactly as that new demon king tells them.

“Have I been wrong all this time?”

“Yes, Sir Aggreahrt.”

I closed my eyes.

Have I really been walking on the wrong path until now? Are you saying that this path was not what the Demon God wanted from me?

[1]: Whew, wow. Two references here, one fairly well known and one very obscure. The first one, “3 Sunbun/???”, refers to an infamous pro Starcraft match between Lim Yo-hwan aka SlayerS_`BoxeR` and Hong Jin-ho aka [NC]..YellOw that took place on November 12th, 2004. It’s an abbreviation of “three sets of continuous bunkering”.

The second term, “3 stacks of boulders/???” is.. As far as I can tell, it originated from a Twitch stream of a Korean Dark Souls player who got repeatedly punted around by a series of boulders on a staircase of a dungeon. Don’t ask me which game, cuz I’ve never played a Souls game before. But, watching the streamer flail about helplessly, trying to navigate through the staircase, was hilarious.